Into The Green World with Dar Williams

Into The Green World with Dar Williams
by David Banyas with Lisa Hummel

Touring in support of her fourth and latest album, The Green World (released in August on Razor and Tie), Dar Williams will be at Whitaker Center in Harrisburg on March 24. Recently, MODE spoke with Williams about the album and what it takes to be considered one of the most talented singer/songwriters of the time.

MODE Weekly: The Green World has been called your more ‘mature’ album, both musically and lyrically…would you agree?
Dar Williams: I would. I think in some ways as one gets older one learns more and more about what not to put into a song, so I think there’s a little bit more simplicity in it. And one would hope that that one would evolve over time.

MODE: You derived the title from a recurring theme of the conflict between the “closed world” [the orderly] and the “green world” [the chaotic] in Shakespeare plays … why so?
Dar Williams: I was interested in that conflict because I actually think that the green world is so valuable — all of the little shake-ups of the day teach us about who we really are and test us and build our character and let us discover our strengths and weaknesses and give us resource and innovation.

MODE: The album, like your others, is filled with stories within the songs — are you inspired easily?
Dar Williams: Yes and no. I have an interesting life but I don’t find myself inspired to write about things that often.

MODE: As a songwriter, you touch on a vast range of topics — from political activism to love and family — do you find your writing to be a release of sorts?
Dar Williams: No, it doesn’t really feel like that. By the time I write a song, it is very defining of certain things, it’s a final realization of a lot of factors as opposed to being a release in an of itself.

MODE: Your lyrics seem to be carefully chosen. Describe your writing process.
Dar Williams: It’s extremely piece meal and it takes a while. I’m really against forcing it, so I try to work by putting in a lot of legwork for the albums — recording them, performing them, taking voice lessons, just working. But I can’t push the inspiration for songs.

MODE: You’ve been praised for writing about the simple truths in life, is that a conscious decision or is that just who you are?
Dar Williams: I don’t know what makes me seek out the themes that I seek out. There’s something that gets a person up on stage that can sometimes be really needy, and yet ideally, you get up on stage with a gift to offer, so there’s a sort of line that you have to walk between needing affirmation and really wanting to offer a gift and being proud to offer it. I’ve just tried to be a writer who tries to give as much to the experience of writing as possible. When I feel myself writing a throw-away line or there is some temptation to do so, I stop myself in my tracks and say, ‘is this a song I really need to write or is this just something to say that I have a new song?’ or ‘is this lyric making sense or is it gratuitous?’ A lot of times the guide that I’ll use to make sure that I’m following the right path is my own experience. I’ll say ‘it sounds great to write that, but is that a cliché? Is the truth more complex and can I look to my own personal experience in terms of what actually happened and bring that more to the structure even if that’s not what I or anybody else would expect the next line to be?’

MODE: You’ve been compared to everyone from Joni Mitchell and Emmylou Harris to Jewel and Sarah McLachlan — how would you describe your sound?
Dar Williams: You know, I think I would just say that, thanks to a lot of stuff that’s going on right now, there is an explosion of women’s voices. This world loves stories, and I think people are really trying to tell their own stories, so I put myself into the category of telling my story: it’s the story of a nice suburban girl who’s chosen a lot of alternative lifestyles and uncovered some really interesting people and a lot of hypocritical movements…

MODE: Hypocritical movements? What stands out in your head when you say that?
Dar Williams: Well, there’s a moment when you have to realize what you need to do for yourself and that it’s just going to be at odds with so many different kinds of prevailing movements — whether it be Capitalism, the military or industrial complex or, I won’t say new age, but the health movement, the health movement that’s riddled with anorexic women sitting on yoga mats and self-hating women talking about spirituality … It seems like there is some sort of party line that you can follow pretty easily in this country, so my story is just about finding other lines.